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Fortune recognized Digimarc for its innovation and commitment to global collaboration in the fight to end plastic pollution. Digimarc Recycle, a product for high-performance sorting, addresses this growing issue by improving the accuracy of sortation for recyclable plastic waste while revealing never-before-available data to unlock benefits for people, the planet, and profits.
“We are honored to be recognized by Fortune for the positive impact we are making in the fight to end plastic pollution,” said Digimarc President and CEO Riley McCormack. “Our message is simple: no more excuses. Global collaboration is critical, and so is taking action. The technology to effect change exists today.”
As governments and industry groups move toward circular economies for recycling and reusing plastics in consumer packaging, there is a critical need for accurate, reliable, and deterministic identification to classify and sort various packaging materials at scale during the recycling process – even in the harshest conditions.
Digimarc Recycle represents a change in the sortation and recycling of plastic waste. By linking covert digital watermarks on packaging with an extensible cloud-based repository of product attributes, Digimarc Recycle overcomes the limitations of today’s optical sorting technologies to drive a step change in the quality and quantity of recyclate. Consumer goods brands and retailers implement Digimarc’s digital watermarks across the surface area of a package or label artwork, where the covert nature of digital watermarks works well with packaging designs and branding.
Digimarc digital watermarks also generate a massively valuable by-product: never-before-seen-data about the plastic waste stream itself. The industry is using this novel post-consumption product data to:
• define more efficient and effective Extended Producer Responsibility schemes;
• inform more sustainable packaging design;
• generate insights that can reduce the total amount of packaging used; and more.
Engaging consumers in the recycling process is also crucial. With Digimarc Recycle, brands now have a direct-to-consumer channel of communication to deliver product-specific and location-based disposal instructions. Major brands and retailers already distribute Digimarc Recycle-ready packaging.
